In recent years, mobile wireless communications have become increasingly popular. Initial implementations of mobile wireless communications, for example in the form of cellular telephone networks, supported circuit switched voice communication services. The carriers developed short message service (SMS) technology to provide text and/or e-mail communications via the wireless communication networks. As the public wireless communication networks have evolved to provide greater bandwidth and packet based services, the industry has developed a variety of data services, such as web browsing, as well as a variety of services using multimedia message service (MMS) technology.
As popularity and demand has grown, subscribers have increasingly obtained service for a number of mobile stations (with individual mobile directory numbers or “MDNs”) under one mobile subscriber account with the carrier providing services through the mobile communication network. For example, a family may have mobile phones for both parents as well as a mobile phone for one or more of their children. Verizon Wireless, for example, currently offers private customers up to five stations/numbers under one account/billing subscription.
As usage of multiple mobile stations under one plan increase situations arise in which a subscriber may desire to restrict certain use or operations of one or more of the mobile stations under the subscriber's account, for example, to limit voice call, data or message usage so as to avoid excessive usage charges. As another example, a parent may want to limit the time of day usage by a child, for example, to prevent usage during school hours or late at night. Parental control restrictions may also limit the other numbers/phones that the child may call to or receive calls from, impose similar restrictions on messaging and/or impose various content or site restrictions on web surfing, downloading or other data services.
Often, these restrictions have imposed hard limits, that is to say, a service of some restricted type would be blocked if contrary to the restriction. For example, if a usage restriction limited the amount of voice call minutes for a particular mobile station (with a particular MDN), then the network would prevent any further mobile voice call to or from the station after the station user reaches the applicable usage limit.
This type of restriction is analogous to the limitations on usage imposed by prepaid arrangements. Notifications may be provided, as usage nears the limit (pass a soft threshold) and/or when usage is blocked upon reaching the hard maximum limit. However, these notifications were typically provided to the infracting mobile station, e.g. whose usage reached the soft threshold or reached the hard maximum limit. Notifications were not provided to any destination other than the infracting device, e.g. not to another mobile station or terminal of the parent/subscriber/account holder, which limited the ability of the subscriber account holder to deal with the infracting activity.
There have also been situations in which notifications were provided to account holders. For example, a recent FCC Mandate requires a communication to the account holder or subscriber when certain pertinent information on an account is changed, such as when the account password or billing plan had been changed via web access or as a result of a phone call or in-store communication with customer service personnel. To insure effective communication of such notifications, Verizon Wireless implemented a hierarchical delivery approach, which would first try sending an SMS message to the account holder, then if the SMS delivery is not successful, try sending an email, then if the email is not successful, try sending a letter, and if there is not a valid mailing address, a file is sent to customer service for a confirmation call back. This approach utilized one or more electronic delivery methods as the first attempts, which tends to ensure that the communication reaches the customer quickly and at the least cost. However, when those methods are exhausted, the traditional, more costly, communication methods are employed. The account holder notifications, however, were not applied in the context of operation of the mobile stations associated with the subscriber account, particularly in a manner as would notify the account holder of an attempt or actual infraction of a restriction that the subscriber has placed on the particular mobile station.